It's not at all unusual for games to take longer than five years to complete. Star Craft II took 7. Team Fortress 2 was in development for 9 years, and Diablo III was in development for 11. Those games turned out pretty well.

It's not at all unusual for games to take longer than five years to complete. Star Craft II took 7. Team Fortress 2 was in development for 9 years, and Diablo III was in development for 11. Those games turned out pretty well.

Ugh. Pretty tiring argument that [x] game too [y] years. Star Citizen is fine! One they get the numbers wrong, and two they forget that SC is not near completion.

Correction: 1999-2006 (7 years)
Valve halted the first iteration (1998-2000) because they wanted to use their new Source engine. It was then developed on the side and released in 2006

Diablo III: 2001-2012 (11 years)

Correction: 2008-2012 (4 years)
Do you have any proof outside from Wikipedia that Diablo III development began in 2001? No. Someone tossed that in because that's the last Diablo II release. Not one HINT of anything- not a rumor, interview, or forum post even mentions D3 development until 2007. It wasn't even announced until 2008, and interviews with developers at that time state they were still working on classes.

It's not a huge deal that the game is now into year 7, however the game is FAR from release, and given the current rate of work shown I can't see it happening anytime in the next few years without either cutting many features or the unlikely case that they have a ton of stuff done and are simply hiding it.

It's not at all unusual for games to take longer than five years to complete. Star Craft II took 7. Team Fortress 2 was in development for 9 years, and Diablo III was in development for 11. Those games turned out pretty well.

Really Tal? Ugh. I asked you not to spread misinformation once didn't I?

It's not misinformation. Whoever made that post didn't do their research. Diablo 3 was announced and demoed in 2008, but development started following the release of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction by Blizzard North - and there's no way they built a fully functional demo in 2008 (in less than a year). Team Fortress 2 started as a mod that began development in 1998 and was released in 1999, and then further developed into Team Fortress 2 - a process that took 9 years, seeing as the release date was October 10th, 2007 (October 18th in the EU) - and not 2006. I don't even know where they got the "2006" from, and suspect they completely fabricated it to fit their arguments.

They're six years in and it's an incredibly ambitious game. I'm not surprised it took this long. Actually, I'm more surprised they somehow thought it would take less time.

Correction: 1999-2006 (7 years)
Valve halted the first iteration (1998-2000) because they wanted to use their new Source engine. It was then developed on the side and released in 2006

No, it was released in 2007, not 2006. So... it did take 9 years.

Diablo III: 2001-2012 (11 years)

Correction: 2008-2012 (4 years)
Do you have any proof outside from Wikipedia that Diablo III development began in 2001? No. Someone tossed that in because that's the last Diablo II release. Not one HINT of anything- not a rumor, interview, or forum post even mentions D3 development until 2007. It wasn't even announced until 2008, and interviews with developers at that time state they were still working on classes.

Why yes! https://www.diablowiki.net/Diablo_3_His ... Diablo_III
While they never outright stated it, they dropped hints and rumours that it had been in the works since the early 2000's.
Aside from that, they announced the game in 2008, showing gameplay right there. Which means the game was already quite a while in active development, meaning it obviously did not start being developed in 2008

I have a question for Victor Tombs and anybody else who has interest in answering. Pretend Star Citizen does not come out this year, or the next. #1 Are you perfectly happy just dreaming about the game or do you need to play it to get enjoyment? #2 Would you prefer the game never comes out so that you can dream for a few more years?

This comes back to haunt me again and again, is the nagging feeling that the backers do not actually want the game. Here is how I come by that realization:

- The biggest obstacle keeping Star Citizen from being released; in fact is Chris Roberts himself
- If backers truly wanted this game, they would rage hard against Chris - they would demand his removal and his replacement
- Backers do not do this - rather they defend and protect him (by extension defending and protecting the one man completely destroying their dream game)
- Hence they do not want Star Citizen released

I didn't see any answers to #1 and #2 yet. I am working on a plan for Star Citizen in 2018 today. Something along the lines of 'If you can't beat em, join em.'

This game is Chris's dream. That would be the same as saying that Josh is the reason LT isn't out today and demanding that Josh get removed from the team. That simply doesn't fix anything and shows just how much you know about game development.

This game is Chris's dream. That would be the same as saying that Josh is the reason LT isn't out today and demanding that Josh get removed from the team. That simply doesn't fix anything and shows just how much you know about game development.

lol. I disagree. If backers could I would recommend they move Chris to a creative consultant role like Microsoft did back in the day. Anyways not worth discussing because no way to make it happen. However if Chris steps down in 202X to let someone else run the project then I totally called it.

Hey guys make me a successor to wing commander and make it an open world sim, I'll check in every 6 months from my villa in Monaco to offer some advice on direction.

This game is Chris's dream. That would be the same as saying that Josh is the reason LT isn't out today and demanding that Josh get removed from the team. That simply doesn't fix anything and shows just how much you know about game development.

1. Josh isn't a seasoned developer with many games under his belt. In fact, he's brand new at this and can be given some leeway for that reason

2. Chris Roberts did not suffer a mental breakdown a couple of years ago resulting in a game delay.

3. Josh wasn't previously removed as project lead from a project for scope creep and poor management. Chris was.

I hadn't actually known that Chris Roberts was taken away from project lead and put in a creative consultant role. It seems to be true, too. I'll need to research it a bit more for the full story, but that's interesting... I suppose as long as SC stays funded, development will continue, though, and they seem to be doing pretty well on that front - so I'm still not particularly worried.

I hadn't actually known that Chris Roberts was taken away from project lead and put in a creative consultant role. It seems to be true, too. I'll need to research it a bit more for the full story, but that's interesting... I suppose as long as SC stays funded, development will continue, though, and they seem to be doing pretty well on that front - so I'm still not particularly worried.

Microsoft unsatisfied with Digital Anvil’s lack of completed projects, bought them out. Chris Roberts has been removed, err, left the company, where he served as CEO and oversaw the development of Freelancer. He is currently acting as a creative consultant, but we believe this to be nothing more than a media ploy. He wasn’t doing a good job, he was occupied with his, ehm, flowering career in the film industry, and as a result, he’s out.

What does this mean for Freelancer? It means we’re very likely to get a dumbed-down version of what we were expecting. It means that we’re unlikely to get a Freelancer Online, at least the kind we were hoping for.

In a related announcement, Chris Roberts, founder and CEO of Digital Anvil, said he would be departing the company to pursue other creative endeavors. Roberts will, however, continue to work with Digital Anvil through the completion of “FreeLancer.”
Serving as creative consultant, he will continue to craft the game’s intricate storyline and serve as an adviser to the development team.

I don't need Star Citizen to come out this year or the next one (even if that would be very cool) but I want it to be good when it finally arrives. I have too many other games to play, too many other things besides playing to do, so I can wait. Not forever, but as much as it takes. I prefer to wait for what could be a very different and more engaging kind of experience than to have an incomplete experience now, or a game that just doesn't differ too much from the crowd of other games trying to do the same.

Note: For "incomplete" I'm not talking about alpha here, but the game as a final piece of work. If you have a game that it's good but it doesn't do as much as it could do, if your freedom is limited, if your possibilities are reduced. For example, I could have had this game back in 2016 but without planetary exploration or procedural cities, and that would have been a shame, at least for me.

If it ends up been a bad or mediocre game, well, who cares? There are so many bad and not as good games out there. I will play something else. Limit Theory perhaps?

I hope your circumstances continue to improve, Etsu. Are you back to game development yet?

Fortunately I'm now the owner of a decent video card. Not the best one out there, but a nice one nevertheless, better than anything I ever had, and I have been thinking a lot about the best way to come back to this wonderful but challenging field. Still without Internet though, but I hope to have something to show you very soon.

"Playing" is not simply a pastime, it is the primordial basis of imagination and creation. - Hideo Kojima

CIG implies with tweets like this that the game has layers and layers of fully functional, deep features. "While most pilots view..." makes it sound like there's a healthy pilot community in this game who are so sophisticated that they have "views" on different aspects of the gameplay. The separate mentions of "fuel, arming, and repair" do well to hide that none of those systems are in the game, nor are they designed yet. "Saving credits and time" implies the existence of a sophisticated economy including the time/money underpinnings required to make financial decisions.

Looks like backers are ready to swallow another year of CIG's lies so I'm just going to point them out whenever I see em.

CIG implies with tweets like this that the game has layers and layers of fully functional, deep features. "While most pilots view..." makes it sound like there's a healthy pilot community in this game who are so sophisticated that they have "views" on different aspects of the gameplay. The separate mentions of "fuel, arming, and repair" do well to hide that none of those systems are in the game, nor are they designed yet. "Saving credits and time" implies the existence of a sophisticated economy including the time/money underpinnings required to make financial decisions.

Looks like backers are ready to swallow another year of CIG's lies so I'm just going to point them out whenever I see em.

Here's the thing, when you see posts like this you must remember that they are taken from an in universe point of view and are there to represent the living universe. Everyone knows that these features aren't in the game, and everyone is fine with these types of posts because these posts are simply a form of role playing.

Other games do this as well. Take the latest Star Wars The Old Republic Post. One could argue every statement in that post because it just isn't possible to become elite, or actually fight against the Empire when the game is linear and 10 minutes after you complete the story someone else will play it and have to do the exact same things you just did. Do you see my point? These are just role playing posts which help make the universe the game exists in more interesting and fun to its players.